Ontario Premier Doug Ford says technology to assist with contact tracing will play a critical role in the province’s strategy as they endeavour to ramp up testing for COVID-19.

“We’re coming up with new apps when it comes to contact tracing and testing. It’s absolutely critical that that’s part of it,” Ford said Tuesday as the legislature convened for its first question period in roughly two months, and his government faced questions from opposition parties about issues like COVID-19 testing across the province.

However, the province is still in talks over the potential use of new technology for contact tracing, alone and with federal and provincial counterparts, says the ministry of health.

“Ontario is exploring the use of apps to increase the volume of contact tracing in Ontario,” health ministry spokesperson Hayley Chazan told iPolitics on Tuesday — noting that, as those efforts were ongoing, the ministry was looking towards technology that could also be used for Ontario’s healthcare sector in the future. “For example, this could include apps that have the ability to follow-up and send prompts to people suffering from chronic physical conditions. While access to data is important, we are committed to taking all measures to ensure patient privacy is always respected,” Chazan wrote in an email.

And while opposition members say the government has held regular COVID-19 briefings and consultations across the aisle, NDP leader Andrea Horwath, Green leader Mike Schreiner and Liberal House leader John Fraser all said on Tuesday that they haven’t received any details, to date, about potential apps that would assist with contact tracing.

“Apps, and the ability to do contact tracing is going to be absolutely critical … but it needs to be done in a way that protects people’s personal privacy,” Schreiner said on Tuesday morning. Fraser agreed, noting that privacy would be a “big concern.” Horwath said later in the day that her party had already contacted Ontario’s information and privacy commissioner — in anticipation of future discussions with the government about apps.

But, she said, it was tough to comment on specific questions about apps — such as whether that kind of technology should be incentivized or made mandatory in Ontario — citing the lack of details her party so far had received from the government about their plans. “I was surprised to hear the premier throw this out during question period,” Horwath said.

“There’s a lot of questions at this point, and unfortunately no real answers.”

Contact tracing is the process by which public health officials identify and contact individuals who may have been exposed to someone with a confirmed case of COVID-19.

It is not yet clear how the provincial government is envisioning integrating technology into that process, but the success of contact tracing in Ontario is a key metric identified in the province’s reopening framework document that was released in late April.

Chief medical officer David Williams is to consider public heath system capacity when determining when to ease pandemic measures, including ensuring that approximately 90 per cent of new COVID-19 contacts are being reached by local public health officials within a single day. (Ford, last week, vouched for a national contact tracing plan.)

Fraser noted on Tuesday that the province would need to be able to prove that they’d get enough compliance with the use of an app for it to be effective. For now, he believes a more pressing need is for more “manpower” to carry out contact tracing efforts.

“I think an app is a worthwhile endeavour to look forward to,” he noted.

A Mainstreet Research Poll — reported on by iPolitics today — showed that most Canadians wouldn’t support governments requiring them to download a tracking app, to try to reduce the spread of COVID-19. Just over 57 per cent of the 1,404 respondents to the automated telephone survey disapproved of mandating the use of a tracking app. The subgroups displaying most disapproval in the poll included men, individuals aged 18 to 34, residents of B.C. and respondents who said they had school-aged children.

Support for such an app only reaches a majority, or plurality, in Ontario — at 51.6 per cent — and among respondents who are making $100,000 or more every year, at 52.1 per cent.

Last month, Innovation, Science and Industry Minister Navdeep Bains said “all options” were on the table when asked about the potential of using technology for contact tracing — noting that the feds were looking to other jurisdictions as part of those considerations, and weighing privacy issues. “It’s still early stages,” Bains said of talks, as of mid-April.

“We’ve engaged with a robust group of people across the country that are working on some early stage technology projects. But we haven’t made any final determination in terms of what we want to support and move forward with,” he added.

Alberta recently launched a voluntary mobile contact tracing app to assist with public health efforts — which is believed to be the first of its kind in North America, according to the Canadian Press. The app, called ABTraceTogether, uses Bluetooth to identify other nearby phones with the same app, the outlet reported, and records information when two such phones are within two metres for 15 minutes within a 24-hour period.

Alberta Health Services said their plan was to contact individuals determined to have been exposed to COVID-19 via the number they used to register their apps. The Alberta government has said that no identifiable information will be exchanged between app users, the Canadian Press reported. Individuals with confirmed cases of the virus would be asked to volunteer their app logs to health services, in order to notify their contacts.